Mexico City

Is an ejido a common thing? We have various religious groups like Hutterites and Menonites that have communal farms. Some of them lived in Mexico for a while, I'm not sure if any remnants of their groups still exist there or not. I've googled this volcano before and it just struck me as odd, but kinda cool. Farm land in the middle of a city, in the middle of a volcano. I though it might have been ancestral land or something, because it seems so protected. An island amidst concrete and rock..

Ejidos are very common.
It's a political, not a religious ways of organizing the tenure of land.
The ejidatario doesn't own the land, which belongs to the ejido, a sort of communal partnership. But usually he works his plot as if it were his property. Some of the ejidos are collective, by decision of the ejidatarios.
It's the way much of the land was distributed after the Revolution.
Until a reform in 1992, ejido land could not be legally sold or leased.

We have a lot of menonites in Chihuahua.

About the Hawaiian crater, on Wikipedia:
"The interior and adjacent exterior areas were the home to Fort Ruger, the first United States military reservation on Hawaii. Only a National Guard facility and Hawaii State Civil Defense remain in the crater. An FAA air traffic control center was in operation from 1963 to 2001."

Interesting. Thank-you. A few more questions and I'll let you continue on the tour. Are the plots of land ancestral, do they get passed down. How do they decide who farms the land? Are all the plots fairly equal in size?
I'm really enjoying the visuals. I've been to quite of few of these places, but I really want to go back and explore some more. I'm big fan of how much art and history is part of your daily commute. I live in such a young city. We've very little of either...

There are 3 types of rural property in Mexico. Private, ejidos and communal.

Private is, well, private. A person or a corporation owns the land. Private ownership is limited to 200 has. per person. But there is land leasing, too.

Ejidos, a big plot is given to an ejido -an association of peasants-; the ejido decides how to work it (usually each one has a plot and they all sell the crop together). If an ejidatario dies, his son inherits the membership (not his daughter, or his wife, or his siblings). The ejido is the owner of the land, and can only sell it or lease it (or parts of it) if the Assembly decides to do so.

Comuneros, a plot is owned by a community, usually an indigenous community, and is worked collectively.

Some ejidos are big, some are small. Some are very productive, some are not. Most of them come from land redistribution after the Revolution.

Time to visit delegación Xochimilco, west of Tláhuac, southeast of Coyoacán, one of the more traditional and different places of Mexico City.

Xochimilco has three very different parts. It has 14 pueblos, with indigenous heritage, a modern and industrial part and a mountain and lake zone.

The best known part of Xochimilco is its historical center. A town within the city.

In downtown Xochimilco there are several embarcaderos in which tourists board colourful trajineras and have a slow ride thorugh the main canals of the place:



Usually it's the typical weekend family trip. On friday afternoons, it's more of a teenage hangout. On weekdays, it's more a romantic place.

And as you go by, vendors in their chalupas will offer flowers, food, drink, music...

The tourist ride is on the main canals, but it's really a maze. Canals and chinampas, the mesoamerican method of gaining ground to the lake for agriculture.
Most of Xochimilco's chinampas are dedicated to flower growing.

One of the chinampas, near the main canal, is very creepy. The owner filled it with broken dolls that are hung around "to cast away the evil spirits". It is called "La Isla de las Muñecas" (The Island of the Dolls). Not good vibes.

And, of course, Xochimilco has a huge market of flowers and plants:

Beautiful. I never particularly wanted to see it, give the time problems of a visitor whenever I was in Mexico City, but I wish I saw it once anyway.

Some of the pueblos of Delegación Xochimilco.

San Lucas Xochimanca:



Santa Cecilia Tepetlapa:



San Andrés Ahuayaucan:



San Gregorio Atlapulco:

The National School of Plastic Arts (UNAM) is at Xochimilco. Here you study Visual Arts and Visual Communication and Design



Also at Xochimilco, another of the campuses of UAM:

Another part of Xochimilco is Cuemanco, a long canal adapted for rowing, surrounded by a jogging track and lots of sports fields:

And, next to Cuemanco, the Ecological Park of Xochimilco:

Another zone of delegación Xochimilco is known as Tepepan, for the town that was engulfed into the city:





Unlike the towns in the southern part of the burough, that have kept most of their flavor, Tepepan has kept little, as it's surrounded by middle class neighborhoods:

At Tepepan, the Museo Dolores Olmedo keeps several important pieces by Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and a garden in which peacocks and xoloscluintles (Aztec dogs) roam:



Xoloscluintles:


Some of Frida's work:





This one by Rivera:

Beautiful museum, love the dogs. I've never been a Frida fan - it might have been that film that went on and on and on and on - maybe one of these days. Like the Rivera painting a lot.